Akis Zam­bar­tas, the driv­ing force be­hind the es­tab­lish­ment of Zam­bar­tas Winer­ies in 2006, has died aged 67.

After a long ca­reer in the wine business, as Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of KEO for 8 years and pre­vi­ously its chief wine­maker for 25 years, Akis de­cided to follow his dream and build his own bou­tique win­ery in or­der to craft qual­ity wines from the finest Cypriot and in­ter­na­tional grape va­ri­eties found on the is­land. In a mat­ter of few years and with enor­mous en­ergy and pas­sion, he built the beau­ti­fully lo­cated win­ery in Ayios Amvro­sios, and won sev­eral awards in in­ter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions, shar­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in re­cent years with his son Mar­cos.

Akis Zam­bar­tas had been a lead­ing au­thor­ity of Cyprus wines. He vis­ited winer­ies and vine­yards all over the world and ac­quired de­tailed knowl­edge about ev­ery as­pect of grape cul­ti­va­tion and wine pro­duc­tion in Cyprus. He had a PhD in Chem­istry from the Univer­sity of Lyon and a de­gree in Wine­mak­ing from the Univer­sity of Mont­pel­lier. To close the cir­cle of his ca­reer and pass on his knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, Akis started teach­ing the Oenol­ogy course at the Univer­sity of Li­mas­sol, TEPAK.

Akis over­saw ev­ery part of the wine­mak­ing process at Zam­bar­tas Winer­ies and is also cred­ited with re­viv­ing and pro­mot­ing some of the na­tive grape va­ri­eties. He was con­vinced that the unique­ness of a wine starts with the vine and will come only to full ex­pres­sion by care­ful han­dling of the process from grape to glass. With an ob­ses­sion for per­fec­tion, he and Mar­cos, hand­crafted the wines from vine­yards to bot­tle, re­sult­ing in el­e­gant, yet ex­pres­sive wines.